As the four-story cowboy boots journeyed down a Texas highway on three 18-wheelers in 1979, bound for North Star Mall in San Antonio, the giant footwear got stuck beneath an overpass.

San Antonio is home to the world's largest pair of cowboy boots, but the story goes far beyond their colossal size.

Cowboy boots are, as they say ... who founded Lucchese in San Antonio, in 1883, were shoeing Texas cowboys too. Over the ensuing decades, notable bootmaking outfits emerged all across the state ...

"He was a working cowboy, so they were definitely ... So many big names in boots started in Texas — Lucchese in San Antonio, Tony Llama in El Paso and Justin's in Fort Worth.